Letter to Members Highlights Investigation Revealing Spending on Bizarre Research, Lack of Transparency

Washington, D.C. (July 28th, 2011) – Late yesterday, Andrea Lafferty, President of theTraditional Values Coalition (TVC) sent a letter to key members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees including Reps. Dennis Rehberg and Rosa DeLauro, whose subcommittee oversees the National Institutes of Health (NIH), calling for an immediate six-month moratorium on all NIH grant awards towards behavioral science and foreign institutions, as well as an intensive round of investigations in the conduct of the NIH peer review process. Their six-month investigation of NIH grants uncovered more than half a billion in grant monies paid to researchers to conduct bizarre projects and more than $90 million given to the Chinese government—America’s largest creditor—over the last decade for other research.

“Traditional Values Coalition has uncovered over half a billion dollars in wasteful spending through the NIH. As the first two reports of our research have been handed over to the public in the last few weeks, certain beneficiaries of NIH have taken great pains to dissemble -- or at best, avoid discussing -- certain fields of research that are striking working families across America as wasteful, illicit, and in many cases outright offensive.”

“There is an alarming lack of ethical integrity within the peer review process at NIH in determining which grants should receive the backing of the American taxpayer, but the types of studies approved by not just one, but two layers of peer review points demonstrates the institutional rot that permeates NIH.”

“We should be very clear from the outset of this request. This is not a concern about the legitimate lines of research that advance the scientific mission of the National Institutes of Health….To the contrary, Traditional Values Coalition urges the NIH and the federal government to refocus efforts to reinforce the ethical integrity of the peer review process, to finance equitably specific lines of research in proportion to their threat to public health, and to ensure that ethical norms co-incide with a moral commitment to the dignity of the individuals involved.”

“Traditional Values Coalition urges you to freeze and investigate these questionable practices at the NIH…”

Traditional Values Coalition is an interdenominational and multi-racial public policy organization speaking on behalf of 43,000 churches nationwide.